Friday, June 5, 2015

Tool Store

Today I visited Inoue Hamono, a tool store not far from where I am staying. "Hamono" means "bladed things" (more or less), a pretty good name for the place. The owner was incredibly inviting, and we had a great talk about tools and his work. Osamu Shoji and Azby Brown (see previous post) told me about this store.

Nice carved wooden hand as a display.

We had talked about these hammer handles. Note the bend in it, supposedly it improves the ergonomics.

Special spatulas for spreading lacquer. Mr. Murakami had similar nicely made tools for spreading glue.

A see-through shaving created by a hand plane.

A yariganna, an ancient tool that is the precursor to the Japanese plane.

A round-bottomed plane created by using a curved blade. I'd seen these once before, in another high end tool store in Kyoto.

The same plane with a simpler version, a thin curved blade set in a guide.

The tool store owner told me these planes were designed to cut the curved corners of window sash, like the one here. It seems like an amazing tool for just this purpose.

A selection of slicks.

This unique chisel is made for cutting across the grain when making geta (wooden sandals) where you have to remove material in the middle of the block of wood.

The owner makes furniture, including this table. His cat had clawed away at one leg.

And boxes.

And spoons, including this lovely Japanese ebony spoon. He sold many spoon/bowl gouges like the two shown. These are priced about $100 apiece.